Summary
Title: Mystical Diets: Paranormal, Spiritual and Occult Nutritional Practices
Author: Jack Raso, M.S., R.D.
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 0879757612
Pro:
• Specific, popular beliefs critiqued
• Common philosophies critiqued
• Extensive use of original quotes
Con:
• None
Description:
• Many alternative nutritional beliefs examined
• Reasons why these beliefs appeal to people also exmained
• Reasons why scientific understanding is better than spiritual beliefs.
Book Review
Unfortunately, these diets have little to no connection with sound medical advice or with genuine scientific understandings of how the body works. Jack Raso once bought into a lot of the outlandish ideas sold under the label of alternative nutrition, and his journey through these beliefs forms an important underpinning to his work. He is able to approach these programs from the perspective of someone who has really believed.
Unfortunately for his earlier faith, Raso’s interest in nutrition eventually led him to undertake a formal study of the subject, leading to a number of degrees. Through the course of actually learning about human biology and chemistry, he discovered that all of the claims made by practitioners of these alternative diets have no real basis in fact or science. His book, then, is an effort to explain to people why those diets cannot work and why they may in fact be harmful.
The most common thread running through all of the different alternative ideologies is the idea that proper health can be achieved and maintained through the manipulation of vital “energies” which run through the body. These energies are called many different names, are detected in many different ways, and are often mutually incompatible. They have nothing to do with genuine biology or chemistry, but instead are mystical — and often religious — beliefs.
Despite the great variety and mutual incompatibility, you will almost never find practitioners openly disagreeing or even touting their own treatment as superior to other forms of alternative nutrition. Raso quotes Karl Sabbagh from the Winter 1985-86 issue of Skeptical Inquirer:
- ”Is kidney disease rooted in the bottom sector of the iris [per iridology] or the center of the sole of the foot [per foot reflexology], or several different [acupuncture] points in the ear or perhaps the lower end of this complex set of [alleged] energy zones.”
It should be a warning sign to everyone that believers of these alternative treatments never critique other, incompatible alternative treatments and instead save their negative comments solely for scientific medicine. This, if nothing else, should point out how their medical beliefs are more a matter of ideology rather then genuine belief in their treatments being the best method of tackling disease.
The label commonly applied to the belief in “vital energies” is “vitalism,” and can be traced back to Aristotle and many of the very earliest doctors. It was largely abandoned by the medical profession during the 19th century and has been replaced with the scientific method and modern, rational practices. Nevertheless, it is a common characteristic of paranormal beliefs that they tend recycle old, worn, and long-refuted ideologies in a slick new packaging made appealing for modern audiences unfamiliar with the past.
